AJC section changes/staffing cuts - INTERESTING UPDATE 8/26

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

I still don't buy it. Those pages will disappear within a few months.

On another note, something occurred to me while reading Skip Caray's obit. Just about every newspaper has prewritten obituaries for various area luminaries. What happens when the person who writes that obit gets bought out (or leaves for any other reason)? I can imagine that the AJC, for example, has a number of obits prewritten by Barnhart or Hummer. Would those be redone? Run with that person's byline? Run almost verbatim with someone else's byline?

Just curious.

 

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

We recently ran one by someone who had left the paper. Someone else updated it with the news of the day/last year or whatever. Ran with a double byline and a short note at the end.

 

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

Did you guys catch this last paragraph in one of Tony Barnhart's latest blogs? Not sure what this means:

http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/ajc/cfb/entries/2008/08/04/the_question_at.html

"On a personal note: I want to acknowledge and say thanks to those of you who wrote words of encouragement concerning an upcoming change in my relationship with the AJC. Given the realities of the blogosphere the word has gotten out about some of the tough decisions a lot of us in this business are having to make. I’m not in a position to talk about it now but I hope to be able to do so soon. But I did want to thank you for the kind notes."

 

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

Yeah,
apprently he took a voluntary buyout. wow.

 

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

I remember the NYT running Red Smith's byline on Satchel Paige's obit and Paige outlived Smith.

 

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

What a great motivation to write some advance obits on young jerks. You can be dead and buried and still get the last word on them, from the grave, when they eventually kick. Sweet.

 

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

The Daily Show pointed that out with a NY Times obit on Ronald Regan maybe?

Why wouldn't you leave the by-line? The person wrote it.

 

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

Lots of papers try to pretend that people who took buyouts or got laid off never worked there in the first place. (OK, that overstates it, but I have seen papers bend over backwards not to mention folks who left, especially those who walked off with a buyout or severance check.) Seems like they're afraid of reminding readers what -- and whom -- they no longer get for their 50 cents.

 

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

More like "Covers Dixie like a June snowfall"

 

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

If you're on a national beat, a beat sharing situation, a golf/tennis/boxing/racing writer, you're fucked...

Barnhart is a better reporter than he is a writer, but Holy shit if he isn't a legend down there and one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet.

 

Re: AJC section changes/staffing cuts

I was wondering about that since I didn't see his name anywhere else. Hopefully now he'll actually get to do more writing.